“I wish you remembered us,” he whispered. Then he stepped back. “Get some sleep.”
She turned and walked through the doorway where the darkness of her room swallowed her. She tried to feel for him, to sense his presence. She thought she could. But he would have gone back to his room as soon as she went into hers, and she didn’t feel his presence receding, so perhaps she wasn’t feeling him after all. Perhaps it was just the lingering feelings he’d aroused in her.
It was nearly an hour before her mind wandered into sleep. As it did, she thought she felt a presence withdrawing from her. Her last thought as sleep took her was whether she was imagining things or if Marcus had really stood outside her door for that long.
Chapter 23: Neural Pathways to Light
The next morning, Maggie climbed into what everyone referred to simply as the “cart.” It looked like a technological covered wagon. Made of a metallic material, it was large inside with comfortable seats, but the roof was rounded like a covered truck, and the wheels on the outside were large enough to be wagon wheels. They climbed up into it and all sat facing each other in a circle, except for the driver, who faced forward. The windows were spacious and had no glass in them.
Karl explained as they piled in that the propulsion system was neurologically powered. It took only a miniscule amount of energy to make the thing go, and the driver could put it on the equivalent of autopilot but hook himself up to the system so that it would alert them to any problems along the way.
Maggie noted that Nat was coming. She supposed it was understandable, but Doc had said that only the team was coming; Maggie couldn’t imagine David would be too happy about that.
They would travel all day then stop for the night to sleep somewhere. They would then travel for the entire second day and then all night too, arriving at the coast in the morning. From there, they would sleep away the third day on the watercraft, as it would take about ten hours to arrive at the island. Doc said they’d arrive at the island at nightfall. This would work well, as Doc didn’t want to try to infiltrate until dark when most people would be asleep and only a few guards would be on patrol.
There wasn’t much talking during the first day. The problem was that they couldn’t plan anything about the island until they got there and had some idea of the landscape and set up of the place.
For the most part they rode silently, staring out the window at the passing landscape. The silence was companionable though, not unpleasant. The cart moved fast. Maggie couldn’t be sure, but by the speed the landscape rushed by, she would have guessed at least a hundred miles an hour, yet it was much smoother and calmer than a car ride at that speed. Despite the open windows, the rush of air past the cart wasn’t loud or disagreeable, and the atmosphere inside remained comfortable.
Maggie leaned her head against Marcus’s shoulder and rested her eyes. After a few minutes, he lifted his arm and put it around her so her head rested on his chest. Definitely not an unpleasant ride.
***
They stopped to make camp as the sun began to set. Despite sitting all day, Maggie was exhausted—not unlike the effect of road tripping in her own time.
They found a small, concealed glade where the grass was thick and there was plenty of room to park the cart and lay out bedrolls. There was no need to start a fire. The night was warm, and the foodstuffs they’d brought didn’t need to be cooked.
“So, why stop?” Maggie asked Marcus as she helped him unload the cart. “Why not drive all night? We’d get there faster, and the lack of light isn’t a problem, right?”
“That’s true. We can feel obstacles and guide the cart around them, even in the dark. It has more to do with our own stamina. It’s amazing what the simple act of sleeping at night and waking during the day does for your health. People who sleep away the day and stay up all night don’t have as much vitality or mental acuity. We all need to be as alert and healthy as possible for this, so we stop at night. Besides, the collectives don’t know our plans. I don’t see that an extra eight hours before our arrival will make a difference.”
Maggie laid her bedroll next to Joan’s, and Marcus lay beside her, which she wasn’t displeased about. Maggie wasn’t entirely clear on where they stood. Still, she felt safer with Marcus close by.
Karl had been driving all day and was tired, so it was decided that Marcus would keep the first watch and after four hours would wake Clay to take over. They were only planning to sleep eight hours, so no one else would have to take a turn.
As Maggie settled down for the night, she thought about all that had happened. She wondered what would happen at the island. Thinking about it made her heart race, so she tried not to. She felt like she was on a doomed mission in an alien world she knew nothing about and was completely unprepared for. Death, enslavement, bodily harm—these were all plausible outcomes.
Deciding to think about more pleasant—or at least less unpleasant—things as she drifted off, she turned her thoughts to the ever-elusive flashes. She still had no idea of what they meant, and that bothered her.
A flash of purple light. A rock formation. Brown boots walking across a room at eye level. Two large hands covering hers. A hand with an ugly, black burn on it. A woman standing in front of a broken lighthouse. Blood on her hands. A whisper of a voice. Gasping, clawing for air.
With thoughts of the visions running amok in her head, Maggie fell into a troubled sleep, where strange women died in her arms in front of broken buildings and blood-red sunsets, and where sinister whispers became tiny, sharp pincers, picking away at the inside of her head.
And then she felt it, far to the west.
***
Marcus finished his watch and woke Clay, who slapped his own cheeks loudly to fully awaken and then walked grudgingly toward the cart.
Whoever was on duty sat on top of the cart, keeping watch over the camp. From up there it seemed one had more control and could take more in. It was an illusion, of course—a psychological thing. He could cast his mind up to where the owls nested or below the ground to where the earthworms crawled with equal ease. But from atop the cart Marcus just felt more in control, as though he could take in a larger dominion.
Besides, there was less temptation to sleep atop a metal cart than if you were sitting on your soft bedroll.
Marcus lay down beside Maggie. She’d slept peacefully so far, but he could tell she was troubled, nervous for the coming mission. He didn’t blame her. She’d been here so short a time and with so little training.
More than anything he wanted to pull her into his arms, but he didn’t know if she would be comfortable with that. And he didn’t want to disturb her sleep.
Content that for now she was close by and sleeping peacefully, he rolled over and told his mind to rest.
He judged by the moon that he’d been sleeping for about two hours when Clay shook him awake.
“Marcus, wake up.”
Marcus sat up on one elbow, trying to clear the mist from his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Maggie.”
Marcus was instantly awake. He sat straight up and looked down beside him. Maggie’s bedroll was empty.
“Relax.” Clay put a calming hand on his shoulder. “She’s over there about a hundred yards west of us.”
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
Clay shrugged. “I thought maybe she was going to relieve herself. But it’s been half an hour, and she hasn’t come back. I can sense her. She’s just standing there. I don’t want to startle her or invade her privacy. Besides, I’m on watch. I’m really not supposed to leave the camp.”
Marcus nodded, getting to his feet. “It’s all right. I’ll get her.”
It didn’t take Marcus long to find her as he made his way through the darkness, casting his mind out for anything that might trip him or be a pain in the toe. Clay was right; she hadn’t gone far.
He didn’t want to startle her. Any other member of the team would have sensed his approach, but Maggie was sti
ll new at this and obviously occupied by something, so he purposely stepped on leaves that would rustle and dragged his feet through the grass.
Her back was to him as he approached her, but when she turned her head to the side, he knew she’d heard him. As he got closer, she turned her body as well so she could look back at him.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah. Did I wake you?”
“Clay did when you didn’t come back.”
Maggie sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Marcus stepped up beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing, really. Just couldn’t sleep.”
Marcus cleared his throat. “You were sleeping pretty soundly when I was on watch.”
Maggie laughed softly. He loved the sound of her laugh.
“Okay, so I could sleep. I just kept waking up. Disturbing dreams.”
“About what?”
She gave him a look that said really, and he put his hands up.
“Okay. I guess there’re a few things to choose from. You want to talk about it?”
She gazed up at him and spoke softly. “No.”
The moon was fully above them, and she was looking at him in a way that heated his blood. He thought about leaning in to kiss her, but then she turned away.
“Um, Marcus, what’s that?”
Dejected, Marcus followed her pointing index finger out into the darkness. He didn’t see anything.
“What?”
“That light.”
“Light?” Marcus was instantly alarmed. A visible light could mean trouble—other people, patrols of Arachnimen, other unknown dangers. “Where?”
She continued to point, but Marcus only saw shades of black and gray. They were in a forest of sorts, but it wasn’t dense. The stand of trees they’d made camp in was the only enclosed area for miles, and he and Maggie were now outside it. He could only see the stillness of the landscape that the moon revealed and the shadows of the places it didn’t.
“Maggie, I don’t see anything.”
She dropped her arm and huffed at him in frustration.
“Do you still see it, or did it go out?”
“No, it’s right there. I’ve been watching it for fifteen minutes. It flickers sometimes, like someone’s walking in front of it, but it hasn’t gone out.”
Disregarding what his eyes told him, Marcus cast his mind out, searching for some source of thermal or radiant heat. He found several heat sources nearby, but most weren’t any larger than his fist—tiny forest animals sleeping tranquilly in their dens. A few miles south, he came upon what he thought was an owl, and a huge one at that, perching high overhead in the canopy. Then he came upon slightly larger nocturnal animals—raccoons, he thought—squabbling over the corpse of chipmunk. But there was nothing that would give off light.
He went out farther, searching. When he’d reached a distance of seventy miles, he stopped. Even if there was light out there, there was no way she could see it from this distance.
Marcus looked down at Maggie, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring out at the supposed light, focusing on it. Confused, Marcus tried to figure out what she might be seeing. Then something occurred to him.
“I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, Maggie, but you are quite good at finding light.”
“Joan said that,” Maggie said. “She said I had a gift for finding it.”
“You do. Maggie, I don’t sense anything close that’s giving off light. I don’t think you’re actually seeing it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I am. It’s right there. I’m looking at it right now.”
“I know, but listen. I’m not calling you a liar. I’m saying that you’re not actually seeing the light.”
She gave him a blank stare.
“Okay.” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him, her back to the supposed light. “Do me a favor. Stop looking at it. Instead, cast your mind out and try to sense it. Tell me how far away it is.”
Looking none too happy about it, Maggie obeyed. Marcus could sense her putting her feelers out, but he didn’t follow her progress too closely. He wanted her to figure this out on her own. They stood like that for ten minutes before Maggie’s eyes flew open, shock written across her features.
“What? Did you find it?”
“I…I think it’s on the beach.”
“On the coast?” Marcus laughed out loud. “You see, Maggie. This is what I’m trying to tell you. The coast is another twelve hours’ ride away. There’s no way you could see the light from here.”
“But, then how…?”
“Turn around. Tell me if you still see it.”
Maggie turned around, eyes searching the darkness. “No. I don’t see it anymore. Why can’t I see it anymore?”
Marcus smiled down at her. “We’re going to have to tell Doc about this in the morning. It’s the kind of thing that would fascinate him. You know something about the way the brain works from your education, right?”
Maggie nodded uncertainly. “Yeah, but not much.”
“Do you know what happens to a child’s brain when it is damaged?”
Maggie kept throwing glances into the darkness toward where she’d last seen the light. “Children’s brains are more resilient than adults’. Their brains will create new pathways so the functions of the damaged parts aren’t lost.”
“Exactly. Adult’s brains aren’t that adaptive. As we age, our neural pathways become set, but barring damage, our brains are still always growing, learning, and creating new pathways for us to process new information. I’ve heard of this before, but I’ve never actually seen it. Until now.”
“What?” Maggie was getting more exasperated by the second.
“Sometimes we—human beings—come across something that’s alien to us. It’s something that can’t be sensed with our five senses. Our brains are only trained to process information gained by those five senses. When we sense something in a different way, we have a hard time processing it. So our brain creates a new pathway to help us understand what we’re sensing. It converts the information into something we can identify by one of our five senses.”
“So, you’re saying”—Maggie rubbed her forehead then glanced to the west again—“what exactly?”
“I think you sensed that light on the beach, because finding light in the darkness is one of your natural abilities. But you don’t have your memory of doing it before, so you were confused by it. Your brain created a neural pathway. It took the information your mind had already gathered and converted it into something you would recognize—a visible light. It’s a way to help you understand what you’re sensing. Then, when I told you to close your eyes, you found a superior way to identify and understand what you were sensing. You realized the source and the distance, and though you didn’t realize it consciously, your brain figured out what was confusing it about the sensation. So you no longer need the neural pathway it created before. It’s become obsolete.”
“And that’s why I can’t see the light anymore?”
“You never saw it, not with your eyes. Your brain just told you that you did.”
Maggie’s head went back and forth between him and the surrounding darkness for several seconds. “That’s weird,” she finally managed.
Marcus laughed and wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing his face into her neck. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to do, and she didn’t pull away. Rather, she leaned back against him and let him kiss her neck. He sighed. Why was there never enough time? He wanted to rekindle his romance with Maggie, and she seemed open to the idea, but they were on a mission that could change the world as they knew it. There was simply no time for romance now.
After a minute he reluctantly released her, taking her hand. “Come on. We need to get some sleep.”
Maggie immediately went rigid, planting her feet.
“Don’t worry,” Marcus said, gently putting an arm around her waist. “I’ll be close by if the dreams return. Besides, if we don’t get back soon, Clay may send Karl out after us. And trust me, Karl’s a bear when you wake him up in the middle of the night.”
He could still sense her reluctance, but she smiled and nodded. Without another word she let him lead her through the darkness to the camp.
Chapter 24: A Light on the Beach
The next day Maggie sat beside Marcus while the team flew along in the metal cart, listening to him relate what had happened the night before. Everyone was interested, and as Marcus predicted, Doc in particular was fascinated by what he learned. He asked Maggie the same questions over and over again until Marcus chided him about it.
“I’m sorry to pester you, Maggie. I just want to know everything about the experience.”
Maggie shrugged. “Sorry, Doc. It was strange and unsettling, but there’s not much to actually tell.”
“Fascinating,” he said over and over again. “Simply fascinating.”
“Maggie,” Karl said, “did you sense anything else around the light? People, machinery, anything?”
“No. The beach is too far away. I just zeroed in on the light for some reason. Why?”
“We’ve covered about half the distance to the beach from where we stopped last night. We’re still a good way off, but I’m pretty good at scanning from this distance. I’ve been scouring the beach for the last hour. I can’t sense anything that would put out light. Nothing at all.”
Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know what the light source was. Maybe it was people around a camp fire and they’ve moved on now.”
“Maybe.” Karl didn’t sound convinced.
“Do you want me to help search for it?”
He put up a hand. “No. We’re still far enough from the beach that it doesn’t matter yet. Let’s hope it’s not anything that will be an issue. For now, you should conserve your strength. We’ll deal with it when we get closer.”
As day faded into night and night wore into the witching hours, Maggie wasn’t entirely successful at staying awake. Her head bobbed frequently before reaching the beach, but then everyone’s did. When they arrived and vacated the cart, Maggie’s muscles felt like wood. They’d spent double the time in the cart today than they had yesterday. But the air was fresh and cool and salty. Walking up over a small rise revealed the sandy beach below them. The sky was still black, but a tiny ribbon of light blue was making an appearance in the eastern sky.
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